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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24129997">+0.7</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/extremesoft/pseuds/extremesoft'>extremesoft</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Motorsport RPF, World Rally Championship RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>2017 Rally Argentina, Alcohol, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, I'm not even sure if this can be called a first kiss but I guess?, M/M, Panic Attacks, Rivalry, very much in moderation but still</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 16:42:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,307</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24129997</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/extremesoft/pseuds/extremesoft</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Look around. This could be your party if you hadn’t made shits of it.</i><br/>-</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Elfyn Evans/Thierry Neuville</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>+0.7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>WRC RPF - OMG, now here's certainly a department I never even dreamed of finding myself in! I indirectly blamed my wife for <i>Cyanotypes</i> already, and now I very directly blame her for this, because gosh darnit if she didn't cause all this with her enthusing over Ott Tänak and Martin Järveoja and slowly getting me into watching rally as well on the side :'D (But I also made her write slash for the first time in donkey's years in my turn, tee hee.)</p><p>So, uh. I really have no explanation, none whatsoever. I only started watching rally early this year and never thought I'd end up writing about it despite it being incredibly entertaining to watch, but I already thought Thierry was very cute indeed, and then watching the 2017 Rally Argentina power stage just did some highly mysterious things to me and I started to pay closer attention to this dynamic in particular, and, uh... here's the result. Oh dear, oh dear. This is my first venture outside the F1/FE fandom in literal years, let's see how this all starts to develop. <s>Might not be the last dribble about these two you'll see from me, ahem.</s> Now, for those curious about this, perhaps familiar with my earlier works but unfamiliar with these blokes and rally in general, here's <a href="https://66.media.tumblr.com/98c583f7e5ff112eb07a110eaf122a98/5e1af4e9d7d899ad-9c/s1280x1920/20c61cf94aabcf73a704ee93117df0ddad1ed0e7.jpg">a picture of Thierry</a> and <a href="https://66.media.tumblr.com/8275a7469e4db6b6d5c0680cd93c5691/20be30bb7f316837-66/s1280x1920/8f14d5d4bebccde983288402526ed01ec274d97f.jpg">a picture of Elfyn</a>, and the rest I'll cover by saying that the madness of motor racing transcends every single series. Seriously. F1, rally, Indy, you name it, they're all a bunch of competitive lunatics. Rally just happens more in the wilderness.</p><p>Warnings? No, not really. It's just the usual mental chaos, this time minus erotica.</p><p>Without further ado, I sincerely hope everyone who stumbles upon this enjoys wading through it, let me know if you do! ❤️</p><p>-</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Elfyn is <i>fucked up</i>.</p><p>He lies in his hotel room and stares at the ceiling, the inexplicable sense of <i>shame</i> above disappointment and frustration burning in his throat. The shot-sized bottle of whiskey from the mini-bar stands empty on the bedside table, the piccolo white wine has met its end as well but the bottle rests on the foot of the bed. Neither of them has really been of use.</p><p>Aimless anger is the worst kind of anger. It simply stays to twirl inside him like a galaxy twirls in the emptiness of space, without an outlet, an itch he can’t claw; and he doesn’t consider himself the type of bloke who would senselessly punch things or throw stuff around like an angry teenager at every little misfortune that hits him, but by Gods, he wants to yell-! Yell at the walls and listen to the echo. Punch the pillows, punch a person. Punch himself. Pity that he doesn’t know where Daniel has pissed off to, otherwise he’d probably text and ask him to give him a thrashing among his other co-driverly duties.</p><p>Pathetic. Lunatic.</p><p>And of course Elfyn's anger has an aim, whether he admits it or not. It’s he himself. He closes his eyes, prickling with sharp tears once again. He can’t even say it was Thierry who stole his maiden rally win from him. The irony-! He stole it from himself! One little mistake on the last stage, coming to a bridge, the rear of his car just nudging the unyielding stone post. Seven tenths of a second. Nothing else needed to make Thierry scream with joy and Elfyn want to scream in agony simultaneously as he crossed the finish line as merely something that could have been.</p><p>The night has dragged on tormentingly slowly after the convoy having left El Condo behind, and Elfyn craves anything that would shake him out of the stupefying spiral of <i>everything</i> he has been shoved into. He keeps replaying scenes from the very end of the rally in his head like a video he can’t stop watching even if he wanted to; Thierry shooting to meet him the second he has parked the car, the persistent will to vanish from the face of Earth and not step on the podium at all, the words <i>zero point seven</i> being repeated over and over again. </p><p>Zero point seven. Zero point seven. An eternity.</p><p>The image of Thierry swims in and out of his head. The relieved grin, dark hair sticking in every imaginable direction, damp with sweat and champagne. <i>I’m here alone feeling like a shower of crap</i>, thinks Elfyn, full of vitriol. <i>What a great way to spend a night. They must be having a bloody ball in the meantime.</i></p><p>There’s a spike of resentful curiosity that pierces through his restlessness. He’s not going to get sleep in ages anyway, not in this state; why wouldn’t he pop out to see what a victory party looks like, now that he can't have one himself? To glimpse at what could have been if his car hadn’t decided to act out and if he had been damn <i>better</i>? To just pass by and then return to dwell on it in silence and darkness?</p><p>Fucking hell, what a sad thought. He has really hit a low, hasn't he.</p><p>He chews the inside of his lip for another irritated, hesitant moment before rising and starting to search for his shoes.</p><p>It’s not difficult to stumble upon Thierry’s victory party at all. Elfyn doesn’t have to walk far before the noise carries to him, long before his eyes catch the bar, and offers to serve as his guide. There are people smoking outside, juggling drinks, cigarettes and lighters with practiced steadiness in the middle of pungent-smelling mist. The music blares, but the occasional roars of the crowd inside and their bellowing laughter efficiently cover it from time to time.</p><p>Elfyn stops to think for one foggy instant, hands deep in his trouser pockets. He feels surprisingly tiny all of a sudden, bites his lip. This is probably a bad idea and will only make him worse hundred-fold. There is no real reason for him to put himself through this test. But then again, if he has already fallen into a well, why not put his head below the water too and drown proper, once and for all?</p><p>And then, perhaps, rise back to the surface.</p><p>Perhaps. </p><p>Elfyn takes a deep breath as well as another step forward. He keeps his head down and, to his relief, goes unrecognised by the group outside, masked by the stark shadows and a carefully selected cap that doesn’t have anything to do with the M-Sport team colours or generous sponsors.</p><p>He makes his way straight to the counter and half-yells his order. He isn’t sure whether the quick-handed bartender realizes who he is serving, but is thankful for the complete lack of any special treatment and expressions of deepest sympathies nevertheless, only being greeted with a curt nod and a cold beer not long after that. Money changes hands and Elfyn stares at the golden drink for a short while before taking a long sip and risking a swift glance around. Now that he is here, he is jarringly uncertain why he has come. If he’s not really in the mood to face anyone, Thierry in the least, why has he chosen to torture himself like this, with rubbing salt to the glaring wound in his very core?</p><p><i>Should be a fit punishment</i>, he thinks sourly and downs another mouthful. <i>That’s it. Look around. This could be your party if you hadn’t made shits of it, fuck-face.</i></p><p>God, how he hates himself when it gets like this, him indulging in self-degradation and powerless to stop. In the farthest corners of his head he knows it will ease. It must. But now is not the time, no. Now he can only succumb to this, his own irredeemable inferiority, wins surely ever destined to pass him by. The bitterness of the beer is nothing compared to his own. </p><p>He can’t see Nicolas anywhere and neither does he spot Thierry right away. He briefly imagines Nicolas trying to find a quiet spot somewhere in the rock ’n’ roll hellhole in order to phone home, his daughter, and smirks at the thought, <i>not the easiest task in here</i>;</p><p>and then Thierry emerges from behind the wall on his right and catches Elfyn looking before Elfyn manages to lower his gaze and hide. Shit.</p><p>Thierry stops perfectly still for a tick, caught betwixt the beckoning from his entourage and the unexpected sight of Elfyn, and Elfyn can’t help a remorseful gulp at the visible confusion on Thierry’s face. Thierry doesn’t really deserve this shite, does he, Elfyn at his lowest crashing the well-earned party. But then Thierry’s face comes alive with a friendly smile as he forms a muted greeting with his mouth, eyes narrowing behind those orange-rimmed glasses; and for some reason it efficiently reminds Elfyn of his misery yet again and makes his innards curl up into a tight, painful knot, as if the smile had been a direct blow to his gut. <i>Please don’t come here, you didn’t see me, it was a shit idea to come here in the first place.</i></p><p>Yet of course Thierry approaches, the good-natured bloke that he is. Elfyn’s shame burns brighter and brighter on his cheeks.</p><p>“What are you doing here?” Thierry asks, sounding nauseatingly <i>delighted</i>. Elfyn cracks whatever he can of a smile. Thierry has clearly drank some but not too much: his face glows with a rosy hue and his Belgian accent comes out even thicker than it usually does, but other than that he merely seems cheerful, not staggering or spluttering. And when his palm lands on Elfyn’s shoulder, it feels unbearably forgiving. Elfyn almost flinches at the minute, simple touch.<br/>
"Nah, just wanted to head out for a minute”, Elfyn shrugs. It’s not a full lie, after all, even though <i>I have no idea</i> would have been much closer to the truth. “And I recognised some of the crowd here, and- yeah.”</p><p>Thierry pats his arm. Elfyn is desperate to find an escape. He doesn’t want pity or kindness, the least Thierry’s. But there they both are now, the revolting kindness sitting in Thierry’s twinkling eyes, the foul pity nesting in Thierry’s moves as he leans against the counter and shakes his head at the bartender who quickly asks whether he wants to order another round. Despite the beer, and whatever he has deemed fit to be consumed from the contents of the mini-bar back at the hotel, Elfyn feels agonizingly sober.</p><p>“Look”, he starts helplessly, a deer-hunter caught in his own trap. “You don’t need to stand here all night, I’ll just finish this one and head back to try and get some sleep. You can return to your folks, I won’t mind.”<br/>
“I think I’m not going to stay very much longer either”, Thierry replies. He has to raise his voice despite standing close to Elfyn, but it still stays calm. They are used to chatting over the engine noises, after all. “You know what it’s like- no matter what happens, you’re just so tired after the whole weekend.”<br/>
“Well, I can’t say I know exactly how you’re-”</p><p>The moment the words start to pass Elfyn’s lips, he realizes how rotten they taste and how horrible they sound. His eyes widen and mouth opens right on the verge of an attempt to say something; but he has stopped speaking too late, and Thierry’s shoulders slump and face forms into a mirror of dejectment in a split second. Elfyn has long since lost count on how many times he has cursed himself to the depths of Hell, and now yet another one gets added to the list.<br/>
“Oh, bleeding Christ, I'm-”</p><p>“Listen, I’m really sorry for what happened out there”, Thierry interrupts, terrifyingly earnest. Elfyn keeps getting caught up in the twang of his cadence, the fluffy hair serving as the crown of the victor, the ruthlessness still hiding behind his softly carved features. He feels worse than ever, having to wrestle a mad urge to ask whether Thierry would be the one to punch him.<br/>
“Of course I am happy that I won, but you drove a fantastic weekend, nobody can say that you didn’t. And, with performance like that, sooner or later you <i>will</i> win a rally.”<br/>
“As if you’d let me”, Elfyn slurs, a weary smirk splitting the corner of his mouth. Thierry looks puzzled for a moment, and Elfyn has enough of his brains left to start fearing that he has sloped into actually insulting Thierry on the side; but then Thierry shakes his head and snorts at him.<br/>
“Of course I will not let you win”, he counters, an indecipherable look somehow distorting him. “That would be stupid. You will have to do that work yourself.”</p><p>Elfyn feels like he can’t breathe, the inexplicable nausea relentlessly undulating inside him. He’s being ridiculous. Of course Thierry is right. And Thierry really doesn’t deserve this, not on this his day of triumph.<br/>
“I know”, Elfyn yields and tries to smile. Saying what he’s about to is going to hurt like a motherfucker. “And you earned that win. That was one hell of a charge.”</p><p>There’s a flash of warm yet awkward silence, Thierry shrugging and thanking Elfyn with a satiny smile adorning his face yet again, Elfyn feeling thoroughly awful. Thierry isn’t really all that sorry and Elfyn isn’t all that unaffected. They both know better than that.</p><p>Pure panic rises in Elfyn all of a sudden. He can’t understand why, but he can barely stand to look at Thierry any longer. He makes a half-assed excuse including finding the toilet, pats Thierry’s shoulder without really looking at him and shoots into whatever direction seems the easiest to navigate. After bumping into several people and trying to both keep his head down and see where he’s going so hard it makes him dizzy, he finds a fire door in the back end of the bar and blissfully cool night air behind it, as well as himself on a cramped alley with only a few trash containers keeping him company now. He tries to draw deep breaths, devouring the ebony air as though he had been underwater, buries his face in his cold, clammy hands.</p><p>What the hell is the matter with him? Did he even finish the fucking beer? Right now, right at this moment, he is not Elfyn Evans, the World Rally Championship driver; he’s something much sadder and smaller, standing alone on a gloomy alleyway, quivering like a leaf.</p><p>“Elfyn?”</p><p>
  <i>Oh no.</i>
</p><p>The rusty metal door says <i>clack</i> once more. Elfyn wonders whether to look for an inkling too long, and there’s a noose coiling around his throat all anew.</p><p>“I saw you going this way-”</p><p>Elfyn’s breaths are still nothing but harsh sobs - <i>oh, great, I’m so good for nothing I can’t even breathe myself now</i> - and his mortification feels perfectly complete when he realizes he is not only incapable of looking Thierry in the eye but also falling apart right in front of him. He keeps pulling his own hair, rubbing his face, apologizing over and over again, trying to turn away from Thierry and the tenderness he’s surely undeserving of. The sudden touch of Thierry's palm on his shoulder almost pains him.</p><p>“I’m sorry- I’m sorry about this-”<br/>
“You don't need to apologize, it’s okay”, Thierry reassures and places his both hands firmly on Elfyn’s upper arms, shackling him to place. Elfyn trembles uncontrollably, the feeling multiplying as his tremors crash into Thierry in front of him like waves into a jetty. He keeps his gaze down, stubbornly hiding behind the visor of his cap, but Thierry ducks just down enough to reach his eyes and forces him to look. </p><p>Then Thierry turns sombre, in an instant, as if someone had switched off a light inside him. <i>How bloody awful do I look?</i> is the first solid thought that runs through Elfyn’s mind, indeed feeling like the first solid thought that has ran through his mind in ages.</p><p>And it also becomes the last solid thought that has ran through Elfyn’s mind in ages when Thierry unceremoniously grabs his cap and throws it on the ground before wrapping his arms around him, enfolding Elfyn in a tight grip. Elfyn’s eyes fly ajar and breath seizes as his face meets the crook of Thierry’s shoulder. The scents of aftershave and laundry detergent have blended with the odours of the bar and the light, light dusting of sweat on Thierry's neck. Elfyn tries to force the mixture of fragrances Thierry's dark blue t-shirt smells of into his lungs along with air, but his body is still disobedient and his head feels abysmally clouded.</p><p>“‘M sorry.”<br/>
“Focus on your breathing”, Thierry murmurs. Elfyn finds it hard to focus on anything but Thierry’s velvety voice and the hand that keeps drawing small, steady circles in between his shoulder blades. He’s so thoroughly ashamed of himself and this ruthlessly unearthed weakness it’s burning him alive, and even more so when Thierry actually <i>shushes</i> him, but he does manage a shaky inhale. Oxygen. Warmth. More.<br/>
“‘M really sorry.”<br/>
“It’s okay. Just breathe”, Thierry soothes again as Elfyn draws another breath, closing his eyes and finally easing into Thierry’s tight hold an inkling. Yes, this is what it was like to breathe and not feel like throwing up all the time. Focus. The hand moving on Elfyn’s back seems to anchor him to reality.</p><p>“I have been there as well”, Thierry mumbles amicably before softly kissing Elfyn’s temple. Then his cheek. Twice.</p><p>It robs Elfyn of his breath and his senses once again, and he can’t even begin to think about what Thierry’s words mean any further. Strange numbness violently washes over him; he’s suddenly so aware of Thierry’s closeness and the incessant movements of his hand it makes him uneasy at first, no-</p><p>he’s not- he doesn’t- he’s not used to, must be some weird Belgian thing-</p><p>But he can’t lie to himself as much as would be needed to convince himself it doesn’t feel good. Being treated like a human being when he thinks himself subpar. He can’t. He finds himself hoping it wouldn’t come to an end too soon. He finds himself on the precipice of asking Thierry to do it again, and again. Kiss his cheek. The sheer humiliation torches holes through him.<br/>
“Just breathe”, Thierry encourages for the third time, his cheek resting against Elfyn’s ear and the corner of his glasses biting into Elfyn’s skin, their chests now buoying in delicate sync. Elfyn’s heart pounds heavily, and he’s still undoubtedly panicked, but somehow very differently from what feels like long ago even though only some minutes have passed since he stormed out. “Like that.”</p><p>It all happens so surreptitiously there’s almost a dream-like shade to it. Elfyn only slightly raises and tilts his head to lay his cheek against Thierry’s collarbone and get air better, his face having been buried in Thierry’s tee for so long it’s making him feel suffocated. Thierry only slightly raises and tilts his head to kiss Elfyn’s cheek again, but it lands next to the corner of Elfyn’s mouth with both of them moving at the same time. Thierry turns rigid, his minuscule inhale explodes into Elfyn’s ears like a gunshot, and Elfyn lifts his head just a whisper more to press his lips against Thierry’s, driven by instinct and limitless despair to hold on to the unexpected yet suddenly indispensable closeness.</p><p>A muffled sound of consternation escapes from Thierry’s throat and stays to resonate against Elfyn’s mouth. But he doesn’t pull away - no, neither of them does - they linger like that for a fleeting moment, two world-class athletes trembling against each other on a shabby alley behind an Argentinian drinkery, Thierry’s arms still around Elfyn, Elfyn’s mouth on Thierry’s. It feels unforgivably good to kiss Thierry.</p><p>
  <i>To kiss Thierry-</i>
</p><p>It’s only then when Elfyn’s overpowering confusion and self-reproach get the better of him once and for all, when he puts what he is doing in actual words and thus gives it a form. Both his eyes and mouth open wide and he hastily slithers away from Thierry's grasp, disoriented. His legs feel like cast in cement, his arms almost too heavy to carry. Thierry looks so utterly bewildered, hazel eyes full of pure shock, that Elfyn starts to think he would only be content if he didn’t exist at all any longer.</p><p>“Elfyn, what-”<br/>
“Oh Christ, fuck”, Elfyn blurts, again reverting to merely running his hands through his own hair over and over again. “I’m sorry, I’m-”</p><p>He can’t take any of it anymore. The constant, dull noise from the bar, nowhere near as deafening as the drumming of his own heartbeat in his ears - the night air that suddenly seems to have sharper teeth than ever before - Thierry in front of him, so victorious and yet so vulnerable - himself, failing in every possible way a human being can fail today, <i>zero point seven</i> -</p><p>Thierry shifts, opens his mouth again to say something, but Elfyn never gives him the chance; he staggers backwards before gracelessly turning tail and hurrying away. Thierry calling out his name and the sound bouncing back from the walls around them both echo in his ears long after he has gotten back to the hotel, all through him crashing on his bed fully clothed and lying there in a shaking bundle before finally reaching a short while of dreamless sleep.</p><p>(<i>You forgot your cap</i>, reads the message that greets him on his phone screen first thing in the palely lit morning.)</p><p><br/>
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